Our Team

Ben Morris Founder and Chief Marketing Strategist

In May of 1982 Ben Morris graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in Film Theory and Criticism.That summer, he joined Tom “TQ” Quarles and Cindy Carman to found MQ&C.Since then MQ&C has negotiated and managed almost a billion dollars of radio, TV, print, direct mail, outdoor, sports and digital ads for hundreds of clients of all sizes.Ben later became intrigued by psychographic segmentation and modeling, which he believed ad campaigns should be built around.In 2007 he brought “big data” files in-house, now used every day for everything from media buying and creative messaging to site selection, customer-lifetime value, and optimization of digital campaigns.

In 2009, MQ&C started applying their big data analytics to the millions of impressions even a modest digital campaign can deliver.The result was a proprietary bid strategy platform for campaigns by key word, geography, and bid-price.This approach was quickly and widely emulated.

Today, Ben is focused on better understanding and integrating all sources of traffic—offline and online—into a customer lifetime value feedback loop.He is especially excited about the ability to track customers originating offline to online purchases and vice versa, and the ability to change sales strategies over the phone, and landing pages in real time based on sub-second access to data points.

Jarrod Thuener Chief Analytics Officer

Jarrod Thuener graduated from Indiana University – Kelley School of Business with a degree in Real Estate Finance. After college, Jarrod joined the ranks of Marcus and Millichap, the nation’s top Commercial Real Estate firm. Within a few months, Jarrod was in charge of managing the companywide national database from dozens of sources, creating custom demographic maps for agents and programming automated solutions for quarterly reports.Many of his reports and analysis have been featured on nationally-televised programs.

Jarrod joined our team in 2012 and became our Chief Analytics Officer in 2015.Jarrod works with over 40TB’s of data to maintain one of the largest, most comprehensive national consumer files. Jarrod also works with clients to develop easy-to-use app-based models.Jarrod is a nationally recognized expert in the Alteryx platform for very-large database management.At the annual Alteryx Inspire Conference in 2015, Jarrod took 1st place in the Alteryx Grand Prix, a competition of the best Alteryx Users in the world.The following day Jarrod was inducted as an Alteryx ACE.

Staying at the front of the technology curve has enabled Jarrod’s team to provide client insights at unprecedented speeds.Data that would take days or weeks to pull from a legacy system can be extracted directly from structured and unstructured sources in minutes or hours.

Kevin Milani Digital Marketing Strategist

Kevin Milani is a digital marketing innovator and strategist who has routinelydelivered 100-300% improvements in first-year performance for his clients in all digital marketing platforms.Areas of key expertise include paid search, remarketing, display, and Facebook.

Kevin’s campaign strategy is to achieve 100% Impression Share, the measure of how often an advertiser’s ad appears in a search.Only 3% of all advertisers’ ads show up more than 70% of the time, and less than 0.3% of all advertisers show up more than 95% of the time.Kevin has successfully helped clients achieve 95%+ to dominate their respective categories.

At MQ&C Kevin integrates marketing theory and traditional direct response best-practices with digital marketing in the development of his cutting edge programs.Over the past decade, Kevin has managed tens of millions of dollars in annual ad spend for clients across dozens of product and service categories, amassing over 40,000 hours of experience in digital marketing.Kevin has been featured in Fast Company.

Prior to joining MQ&C,Kevin spent 10 years at Zoetics, a business and marketing think-tank providing advice to clients such as Philips Electronics, Kodak, AT&T, Kraft, General Mills, and Time-Warner.

Phil Goodhart Database Marketing Strategist

Phil works closely with our analytics team to develop strategies for client direct mail programs. After graduating with a BA in Economics from Princeton, Phil served in Arthur Andersen’s management information services division, building software systems for clients such as Pfizer and Becton-Dickinson.

After receiving his MBA from Harvard, Phil earned his management stripes at the Danbury Mint, a leading direct marketer of consumer merchandise such as jewelry, home décor and sports memorabilia.During his tenure, Phil rose through the ranks to become Vice President in a $350 million division, driving 200%+ sales growth.He was acknowledged as the company’s best marketing specialist.Along the way, he designed the Company’s first website, helped build the sports memorabilia category to $40 million in annual sales, and doubled sales in the jewelry category.

In 2005, Phil took a new path as a consultant serving the direct response marketing industry.In that capacity, he has served companies engaged in school supplies, personalized jewelry, pet supplies, allergy relief and walk-in tubs.With a long track record of success in data-driven marketing, Phil today focuses mainly on data analysis, planning and creative strategies for catalog and direct mail clients.

Ilaria Bonalumi Media Strategist

Ilaria Bonalumi is a media strategist that brings to Kristalytics years of experience in traditional and digital media.Her areas of expertise include network and cable TV, radio, print, outdoor, mobile and banner ads.During her advertising career, Ilaria has worked for international agencies such as Young & Rubicam, and with a wide variety of clients, including Colgate Palmolive, Kraft General Food, Wendy’s and the Choctaw Casinos of Oklahoma.

A native of Milan, Italy, Ilaria moved to Texas in 1992.She has worked with national and international media, and has expertise in buying media in the top ranked Nielsen markets as well as small, unrated markets.Ilaria combines strong strategic and negotiating skills, and delivers comprehensive media campaigns that are well targeted to the demographic and remarkably efficient.

Ilaria integrates traditional media with innovative ideas, delivering media campaigns that focus on getting the best return for the clients.Ilaria re-joins Kristalytics after a four-year hiatus – during that time she was Media Director at MOSAK, where she handled multi-million advertising budgets for clients in the casino and gaming industry.Before that, she was at Kristalytics/MQ&C for 14 years.

Stacy Wu Data Analyst

As a Data Artisan at MQ&C, Stacy Wu is responsible for processing analyzing, and visualizing the results from big data that lead to the insights that drive our marketing strategies. Prior to MQ&C, Stacy was a data analyst for Mattel on the Fisher Price, Barbie and Hot Wheels product lines and Bacardi Limited, focusing on the Dewar’s Grey Goose and Bacardi Rum brands. Stacy holds an M.B.A. from Virginia Tech, and a B.S. in International Business from National Chengchi University in Taipei, Taiwan.

Staying at the front of the technology curve has enabled Jarrod and his team to provide insights to all of our clients at unprecedented speeds. Data that would take days or weeks to query and pull from a legacy system, Jarrod and his team can extract directly from structured and unstructured sources in minutes or hours. This allows for answers to key marketing and business questions in sub second to a few minutes, as opposed to weeks and months.

Linda has a particular talent for understanding her client’s business goals and translating them into targeted, action-oriented, integrated, measurable marketing and advertising solutions that drive results. Linda has local, regional, and national experience, with a variety of categories including franchises, associations, non-profits, health care, education, as well as a diverse group of retailers that include homebuilders, automotive, food service and entertainment industries.

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